


The Harrises

by beetle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Post-Chosen, post-nfa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written per this prompt from vinniebatman: "Xander/Buffy, in which they are a loving, happy couple!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ordinary Extraordinary

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Praise me, for I have stolen from His Jossness!  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Chosen, Post-NFA . . . het ::shudders:: but slash, too.

"Daddy?"  
  
"Yeah, sweetie?"  
  
"What does cocktease mean?"  
  
Xander pauses in the midst of his seashells-and-glitter masterpiece to look at Manda. Her curly brown hair is a nimbus around her head, early afternoon sun picking out golden highlights. She's still happily engrossed their Saturday project, gluing glitter to her hands--and every available patch of skin--and her hands to both paper plates and the kitchen table.  
  
"Wow, uh--” Xander clears his throat and bows his head over his own plates again. Takes a minute to a glue something shiny, probably a button, to one of his plates. “That's an . . . awfully grown-up word you're slinging, little lady. Where'd you hear it?"  
  
"Uncle Spike said it."  
  
"I see," Xander says, sounding the polar opposite of surprised. "Was he saying it about anyone in particular?”   
  
"When he and Uncle Angel were babysitting me, after they thought I was asleep, they started kissing on the couch. A  _lot_. Then Uncle Angel said 'stop, stop, Spike'. And Uncle Spike told him to 'don't be such a bloody tight-arsed cocktease', and tried to kiss him again.” Disturbing story aside, Manda's accent is dead on. But then it should be, half her uncles are English.   
  
“--Uncle Angel smacked him on the back of the head and said 'no, not with the kid right upstairs, half-wit. Why don't you make some popcorn or something so we can watch the movie'.  _Then_  Uncle Spike said some  _real_  bad words and went into the kitchen. When he came back, he had a big bowl of popcorn and then they watched  _Kill Bill_.”  
  
“Hmm.” Xander was quiet, perhaps reconsidering last night's choice of emergency babysitters. “Did  _you_  watch  _Kill Bill_?”  
  
“Nnnooooo. . . .” Manda sneaks a glance at her dad. “Maybe a little? But it was boring, anyway! None of those ladies fight as good as mommy does.”  
  
“Well.” Xander leans over and kisses the top of her head. “It  _is_  just a movie, honey . . . and you know we don't eavesdrop on people, right?”  
  
Manda nods quickly, all curls and swinging feet.  
  
“Especially Uncle Angel and Uncle Spike, right?”  
  
“Yeeees.” Manda's chastened, but gently. So gently, a second later she bounces in her seat. “Can I have the red and blue buttons if you don't want them?”  
  
“Sure.” Xander slides several buttons over to her and more glitter. They're both going to need showers by the time they're done. “That's really pretty. What's it gonna be?”  
  
“I dunno, yet. But it needs more seashells now, too. Thank you,” she says as Xander passes her a little bowl full of seashells.  
  
They're silent for a few minutes as Manda glues some shells onto her plate. Xander watches, absently picking glue off his fingers in small, glittery strips.  
  
"So, what's cocktease mean?"   
  
“Sweetie, I'm gonna tell you what Grandpa used to tell me whenever I asked what something meant:  _look it up in the dictionary . . . but for God's sake, Xander, wash your hands first._ "   
  
Xander's English accent? Is only so-so. It's better than it used to be, anyway.  
  
"Daddy! I don't know how to spell that good, yet!" That particular tone of exasperation is her father's, but the pout that's probably on her face? She learned from her mother. “I'm not gonna be able to look it up till I'm  _old_!”  
  
“I'm sure that's not true. You're smart, like your mom. Want some more orange juice, kiddo?”  
  
Manda chooses a shell with such exaggerated dignity it's obvious that she's not totally mollified. “Yes, please.”  
  
Xander stands up, still scratching at his hands. He's smiling a little as he takes the o.j. out of the fridge and brings it to the table. Kisses Manda on the top of the head again as he sits down. She beams an identical, forgiving smile up at him before focusing on her art again.  
  
She's her father's daughter in  _every_  respect. So intensely, that sometimes . . . I feel a little like the odd Buffy out. At least until that moment . . . the one when I enter a room and their eyes light up just for me.  
  
“Mommy!” Manda jumps up and launches herself at me for a hug. I swing her up into my arms carefully, ignoring the twinge in my back, the energetic kick under my ribs. She smells like citrus, Elmer's Glue and about half a bottle of my Chanel perfume.   
  
Between not keeping the most watchful of eyes on my five year old, and introducing her to porn and Quentin Tarantino in the same night--Angel and Spike are  _dust_  once I'm back in fighting trim.  
  
“We made you art, Mommy!” Manda grins her father's grin at me . . . minus a few teeth.   
  
“So I see. It's very pretty.” I smile at her, at Xander. “Thanks for letting me sleep in, Xand.”  
  
“You needed the rest, for my son is manly and annoying, even in the womb.” He kisses me good morning then takes Manda in one arm and me in the other, his hand settling lightly on my gi-normous stomach. Right above where the baby is kicking. As usual, the kicking intensifies in response to external stimulus. “The bambino's really bending it like Beckham, in there. Let's get you comfortable, and Manda and I'll go pick up some lunch.”  
  
“Ooh! Churros! And spicy bean burritos!” Manda exclaims as Xander pulls out a chair for me. I've only been standing for ten minutes, but I sit gratefully.  
  
“Ugh, no . . . Caeser salad for me, Xand--”  
  
“--with dressing on the side and a iced decaf non-fat moccachino if it's not too far out of our way?” They finish with twin Harris grins and I fall in love with both of them all over again. It happens at least twenty times a day, but it never gets old. Huh.   
  
"We've got our objectives--" Xander tucks a giggling Manda under his arm like a football. “C'mon, kiddo. Let's hose off and get lunch. Later, mom!”  
  
"Bye, mommy!  
  
Then they're gone; out of the kitchen and up the stairs . . . Manda protesting that she doesn't need to wash her face or her hands, Xander countering that someone thinking she's a dreaded glitter-demon might try to slay her if she doesn't.  
  
The baby--already three days overdue--starts trying to kick through my ribcage again . . . but I can't help smiling.  
  
I am covered in love. And glitter. But mostly love.


	2. An Ordered Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title says it all. Written for the slashthedrabble prompt 'order'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: You didn't see nothin'.  
> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers for “Chosen.” Set post-”Chosen” by twenty-five years.

They lead an ordered life.  
  
Or so Xander likes to tell himself in moments of high stress. Like this one.  
  
“Well?” Jesse demands. He inherited that from his mother, along with the resolve-melting pout and hazel eyes.  
  
“Um,” Xander begins. “I guess--”  
  
“When did this start, and why are we just hearing about it now?” Buffy does some demanding of her own, cutting Xander off with the ease of long practice. But that's fine. He feels spectacularly unequipped to deal with this situation.  
  
Jesse lifts his chin in that determined, haughty way he's also inherited from Buffy. Drags his and Spike's linked hands forward on the the table, where his parents couldn't help but notice them.   
  
Spike, at least, has the decency to look as uncomfortable as Xander feels.  
  
“Now, pet,” he murmurs placatingly, almost too low to hear, and indeed Jesse, a world-class champeen at ignoring what he doesn't want to hear, doesn't hear it.  _So_  like his mother.  
  
Jesse levels a Slayer-glare at both of his parents. (Which Xander thinks is patently unfair since, as always, he's being the 'chill' parent.) “Ten months.”  
  
“You were screwing my son when he was  _still seventeen_!” Buffy screeches at Spike--no, at  _William_ , as he's been calling himself since just after he shanshued two years ago--and both she and Jesse stand up at the same time leaning on the table.   
  
It's like Battle of the Bleached Blonds, and Xander  _so_  doesn't need to be snickering right now.  
  
Spike's eyes dart between mother and son unhappily. “Er. You see. It's like this--” he starts in a miserable voice, but Jesse cuts him off. (For the first time ever, Xander feels a moment of solidarity with Spike.  
  
Cue another Apocalypse.)  
  
“No, he wasn't. He  _isn't_ , and that's the problem.” Jesse pushes too-long, too-blond hair out of his face and sits down. “He's not screwing me at all--not even a little, if you know what I mean.”  
  
Unfortunately Xander does, and wishes he could gouge out his frontal lobe. And his back lobe, just in case.  
  
“Mom, Dad . . . William and I are in love. And when two people are in love, they wanna hump like bunnies--” Xander knew letting Faith babysit for them'd come back to bite them in the ass “--but William's got this silly, old-fashioned idea that we have to be _married_  first, and that we can't  _get_  married without you guys' blessing. So bless us, so we can find a justice of the peace, and a motel. In that order.”  
  
Buffy's ass hits her chair with a bony  _thud_.   
  
This is the moment Xander's been waiting for for years. The moment his wife realizes what he's known all along:  
  
They lead an ordered life.


End file.
